


All Snuggles' Night

by seaweedredandbrown



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Asexual Character, Gen, Huddling For Warmth, M/M, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 07:58:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16552007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seaweedredandbrown/pseuds/seaweedredandbrown
Summary: When Newt heard Hermann had nobody else to join him on his annual trip to put flowers on his grandmother's grave back in the homeland, he immediately volunteered to tag along. Cancelled flights, a car accident and some uncertainty re: their exact location so far, the two of them find themselves stormed in an old shed in the woods. There's only one bed! And it is so cold! What could possibly happen?





	All Snuggles' Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [retrovertigo (ellameno)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellameno/gifts).



The door opened with a creak loud enough to be heard over the howling wind. Newt motioned for Hermann to step in first. He fumbled to close the door behind them; they had had to destroy the rusty chain to get in— effectively causing property damage, but then, the shed was technically Hermann’s, which was fine by him, apparently— and Newt was scared to jam the handle and trap them in.

“There is no telephone,” Hermann called from behind him. “But there is a wood-burner. Come and get it working, if you please.”

“Sure, dude,” Newt said, because at that point he was too tired to be combative. It had been his idea to rent a car. It had not been a good idea, but if he went down that self-loathing road, there was no stop until meltdown station, and Newt was _not_ going to have one in front of Hermann Gottlieb.

There was, indeed, a wood-burner in a corner. In the white light of Newt’s torch app also appeared dust-covered frames on the wooden walls, an equally dust-covered couch, a dust-covered table, two dust-covered chairs and an, unsurprisingly, dust-covered dresser. Hermann was currently inspecting its contents with a deep frown. Newt bit his tongue and refrained from asking any questions.

Their trip had been a disaster from start to finish, or, well, from start to now, since they were not done yet. The problem, as far as Newt could tell, had started at some point during the summer, when Hermann had realized that nobody would be able to visit his grandmother’s grave. ‘Would be able to’ or ‘wanted to’, the difference didn’t matter; either way, Hermann somehow became convinced it was his duty to fly from the other side of the world to the summer lodge she was buried near— lost somewhere in the Bavarian wilderness.

The _Bavarian wilderness_.

The idea had made him smile, except that between cancelled flights, car accidents and a total lack of reception on either of their phones, the two of them had been this close to walking their way back to town in the dark and the storm, until they had spotted the little cabin from the road.

The Gottlieb family crest was engraved above the door, which had been enough for Hermann to decide to force their way in. He hadn’t been that combative either, not since the car had broken down; Newt was getting worried. For all they disagreed and for all he was neurodivergent, Newt wasn’t devoid of empathy— it was the other way around, really— and he couldn’t imagine, Hermann, with his aching body and his grief on his mind, trekking back to civilization with him all night long. In his defense, Newt _had_ suggested they sleep in the car. But with the lowering temperatures and their lack of preparations, Hermann had argued that walking would at least keep them warm, and that efforts on the road would be worth a hotel room with take-away food and a hot shower.

Newt wasn’t sure the shed was a good compromise, but he wasn’t the disabled one of the two; and perhaps he was getting too tired to fight himself.

The twigs were damp, the matchsticks brittle and the whole process too long and too unpleasant for his tastes, but eventually sparks crackled and the fire started. Embers escaped as Newt closed the wood-burner furnace. He dusted his hands off on his denim and got back to his feet with a groan.

“And here we go, got her firing up,” he announced with forced enthusiasm.

Hermann hummed. He had taken seat at the table and laid out their meager provisions before him: the trail mix he was given on the last leg of their plane journey; an apple; a tin can of beans or whatever else, the label of which was half-erased by time and for which they didn’t even have a pot to cook; and something that, given its square shape, must have been instant noodles.

“What a loot,” Newt said, trying not to think about acarids when a little cloud of dust followed the pulling of the second chair.

“I would suggest we share the apple and the trail mix, and leave the rest back where I found it,” Hermann said slowly. “There are two pillows and a blanket at the back of the dresser, leading me to believe this… thing over there might be a bed settee.”

“Oh, you mean, like a sofa bed?”

Sleeping! In a bed! With Hermann Gottlieb!

“A bed settee.”

Nope, Newt wasn’t sure he could do this at all. Not without panicking. Fine, this was all fine, like on that gif with the dog drinking coffee in a house on fire. Sharing a bed with Hermann Gottlieb, that was. But Newt couldn’t sleep on the floor, no, that wasn’t going to happen either. He had to get through this one way or another.

“A bed settee,” Newt repeated, singing Hermann’s British accent. “Dude, you really gotta hear yourself sometimes.”

Hermann said nothing but took his knife out. It was presumably to cut the apple, but Newt decided to play it safe, and stopped joking around.

————

Bed settee or sofa bed, the couch did unfold after some efforts and a great deal of bilingual curses. Then the two pillows were placed down and the blanket spread with a rather noticeable lack of curses, or comments, for that matter.

Hermann was glad to notice Newt averting his gaze as they slipped under the cover, each very careful not to brush against the other. He was hyper-aware of Newt’s presence besides him; the dip on the thin mattress, the warmth emanating from him, the sound of his breathing. But then, Hermann was also very aware of the old, musty smell of the cover, the dampness of the pillow beneath his head, the springs nagging at his back under him. It had been quite the stroke of luck to find the shed, but they still wouldn’t spend a comfortable night. Soon, the cold would creep in; even with the parka on top of the blanket, it could only do so much against such weather. Even with a thicker blanket, the wind howling outside would still be a problem.

Yet Hermann was glad Newton was with him. He hadn’t expected him to offer to come along when Hermann had mentioned his travelling plans; while Newt did say he would also visit his mother in Berlin, and something about political demands and twisting the hand of the PPDC into giving them more holidays whether they wanted it or not, Hermann couldn’t quite shake the feeling that Newt had accompanied him out of kindness, a fact that had moved him greatly. Their relationship hadn’t always been— well, it had been very close, then very distant, and they had now reached an equilibrium where they argued their hearts out most of the time and yet still showed up for each other, once in a while. At least, Hermann hoped he was there for Newton when Newton needed him, grating and clumsy a presence as he was.

“This is officially the first nice thing we’ve come across— since we took off in Shanghai,” Newt whispered in the darkness. He had started his sentence in German and then switched to English, presumably without realising he was doing it. Hermann had noticed this happened a lot. Perhaps Newton was losing some of his proficiency in their mother-tongue; perhaps so was Hermann. Perhaps they should both work harder at it, but for now, Hermann was tired and aching.

“Oh, I didn’t find the food on board to be that bad,” Hermann answered, not quite understanding why they were making small-talk. “For, you know. Airplane food.”

“Nah, gave me this weird nausea, you know?”

“That’s because you ate two servings, Newton.” Hermann smiled.

“No idea what you’re talking about.”

Hermann chuckled and Newt turned to the other side. His backside grazed Hermann’s hip, who hurried closer to the edge of the bed.

“Sorry,” Newt said. A heartbeat. “Are you, like, uncomfortable in bed with me?”

Hermann considered the question. “No.”

“Like is it because I touched you? Or is it because I’m a man?”

“Is it bec— Newton, we are about to sleep. It doesn’t matter what your gender is, when you _sleep_. Especially since we’re both—”

“Because you know I’m ace, right,” Newt said very quickly. “Nothing to worry about.”

“Why would I…” Hermann’s voice trailed off. He sighed. “I am not worried, Newton, but I appreciate your concern. I do know that you are asexual, you insist we decorate the lab for Pride every single year.”

“Like you don’t like it?”

“That is besides the point, we are not—” He sighed. “We are not having this conversation again. Let us sleep for now, Newton, please. We still need out of this pass to reach the summer lodge.”

And pray they would get reception there, as Hermann didn’t expect the telephone line to have been kept running at the lodge either. It had been silly of him to hope that the shed would even have one in the first place, but such was life. He would rather make a mistake now than on the job.

Newt said nothing more, so Hermann tried to relax and find sleep.

Cold crept in through his bad leg first. It always started there— if anything, the leg was always cold and the hip was only colder. Then it spread from one side to the other, then upwards, leaving him unable to find rest. Hermann folded tight on himself, trying to will himself out of shaking, out of breathing heavily, out of tensing up.

“Hey, Herms,” Newt whispered in the dark.

Hermann let out a breath he had been very aware he was holding. “Yes, Newton?”

“Are you cold, man?”

“A trick of the mind. Do not concern yourself with it.”

Silence, or, at least, the illusion of it. Sleep deprivation would only make the pain worse and harder to bear the next day, but Herman remained positive he would at least get a little rest when exhaustion would win over. Small mercies.

“Okay, because, like, _I_ am super cold, dude. And, and we’re both aces, and, and you know what they say about human warmth, right, and so I was thinking, but don’t get all Prussian on me, it’s just a thought—”

“To the point, Newton?”

“… We could cuddle?”

“We could cuddle,” Hermann repeated, as if he were considering a new theory to work on.

“Cuddle wasn’t the right word,” Newt added very quickly.

“Probably not.”

Hermann silenced a little yawn. ‘Cuddling’, as a concept, was not foreign to him; and in the younger, more naive years of their letter-writing, it might have crossed his mind. But now they were adults, grown men, what Tendo called ‘frenemies’, a word which Hermann pretended not to understand. Social norms and expectations weighed down on him. What would people think? And how interesting, that _this_ was his first reaction.

Newt’s finger poked at his shoulder.

“Yes?” Hermann asked.

Newt’s finger poked again.

“Newton, I told you, please use your word—”

Newt’s finger poked again, twice.

Hermann sighed.

“Fine,” he said. He reached out for Newt’s hand in the dark and gave it a little pat. “You may.”

Newt squealed and locked Hermann in his embrace without further questioning. Hermann would have protested— because he had the body of an octogenarian, and that required very, very gentle hugs— but the warmth was too welcome, slowly spreading into him. He leaned into the touch with a smile as Newt settled against him, his chest against Hermann’s back. Along with the comfort came relaxation, and with relaxation came sleepiness.

“Newton,” Hermann whispered after a while.

“Mmh?”

“Thank you.”

“S’okay,” Newt mumbled, “‘was cold too.”

“Mmh. Good night.”

“Night.”

Outside, the storm was still raging. But with Newt’s body warmth to comfort him and the rhythmic rise and fall of Newt’s breathing to keep his brain focused through the rattling and the moaning of the wind, Hermann soon found himself lulled away to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you've enjoyed it! Many, MANY thanks to Tanouska for betareading this, you're the best. This piece was written for the SFW Newmann Fest and is, like, a whole week late, but that's how I roll. I'm gifting this to my good pal Tommy, who puts up with a /lot/ from life, this fandom, and me. I hope you've had fun reading this, too :D Feel free to leave comments, everyone, they give me life. :D


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